Civil War or Civil Decline? Can America Save Itself?

So rather than foreign invasion sending our obese population into guerrilla warfare, the current direction of America is best summed up in Other People’s Money: “Down the tubes. Slow but sure.”

The national actors of our political life have no desire or ability to address the cultural and economic problems leading us to ruin. Social Security is a disaster that has passed into the red, but no one dares to touch it. The federal Department of Education has, in thirty years, succeeded primarily in wasting money, but we can’t abolish it, lest the public think we are against education because we abolished an overbearing federal agency that’s wasting tax money rather than solving problems.

Freedoms in America are declining through a process of curtailing existing liberties and creating brand new “freedoms” out of whole cloth. Americans will always claim to be free, but we may only believe we are free because we don’t know what freedom is. Would America’s Founders think we are a free people if they knew that, in the 21st century, Americans are required to report every penny of income earned and its source? Or if they knew that every citizen is required to purchase a product according to the government’s specifications or else pay a fine? Would they think it's okay that thirteen-year-olds can be transported across state lines to get abortions without parental consent?

The state governments will be little help in reclaiming liberty. When I was running for office in the Republican primary, a Republican stated Medicaid was a good deal for our state because for every dollar we spent, we got three from the federal government -- as if those federal dollars were coming from Fairyland.

There is much saber-rattling about the Tenth Amendment, but do state leaders really want the federal government to stay within its constitutional guidelines? Do they want the federal government to stop spending money on building schools, paying for museums, and subsidizing state and city governments so that these governments can take credit for bringing government money back home without actually having to raise taxes to fund popular projects? Those that clamor for states' rights seek for the federal government to stay within its constitutional bounds only on those issues which the state doesn’t want the federal government to step over the line.

This is the path we’re on: a decreasing amount of opportunity coupled with decreasing personal liberties, with all politicians too self-interested to actually do anything about it. The danger for America is not so much that we will become Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, or even Chavez’s Venezuela, but that we will become America the ordinary, a nation no different than any other Western nation, with absurd levels of regulation (such as Sweden’s baby naming law) and incentives to live like the government owes you a living. Will we soon walk on eggshells to avoid being dragged before a human rights commission for offending an atheist, a homosexual, or an Islamic fundamentalist?

3. Restoration

This is the hard road. National decline is a tailspin nations don’t usually pull out of. It is not because decline is physically irreversible, but because it requires a mental toughness that nations in decline usually have lost.

The challenge for American conservatives is to confront the crisis that faces us and do it in a way that rallies the American people behind the idea of saving our republic.

While the reasons for hope are few, they do exist. There’s Governor Chris Christie’s (R-NJ) tireless campaign against government spending. They call him Governor Wrecking Ball, and a wrecking ball is what is needed right now against a welfare state so large and onerous that it threatens to destroy American liberty.

Two big questions will decide whether these bright spots will be able to push back the dark clouds. First, will we elect statesmen who realize the need to stop our decline, or will we continue to elect politicians content with politically easy half-measures? Second, will Americans who have emerged on the political landscape remain active?

In Blinded by Might, Cal Thomas urged Christians to retreat from the political arena, as twenty-five years of pro-life activism had failed to yield the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Never mind that twenty-five years is hardly yesterday for political movements seeking long-term change.

I’ve been in rooms where 200 people have loudly pledged to stand firm no matter what and then witnessed that number dwindle to a precious few against the withering force of the political left.

The most important question for the future of our nation could be how many folks who’ve entered the political process are here for the long haul, and how many are only Thomas Paine's “summer soldiers and sunshine patriots.”